Note: Adjusted for cost of living, first place Tacoma, WA has starting salaries three times higher than Honolulu and Pearl City.

2022’s Best & Worst Places to Start a Career

Wallet Hub May 16, 2022

Deciding where to lay the foundation for a long and prosperous career can be a tall order, especially for recent graduates entering the job market for the first time. After all, there are many factors — job-market saturation, housing affordability and commuter-friendliness, for instance — to consider about each prospective area.

Fortunately, new graduates are entering the market at a good time, as the unemployment rate for people ages 20 through 24 is currently 6.9%. The job market has made a huge recovery from the damage done by the COVID-19 pandemic, and employers plan to hire 31.6% more graduates from the Class of 2022 than they did from the Class of 2021.

In order to help new graduates start their search for a career, WalletHub compared the relative market strength and overall livability of more than 180 U.S. cities to help recent college graduates find the best cradles for their budding careers. They examined each city based on 27 key metrics that range from the availability of entry-level jobs to monthly average starting salary to housing affordability….

read … Full Report

KHON: Hawaii has lowest monthly starting salaries: Study